Radar Love
by 9091
Summary: Long-distance relationships suck.  Secret long-distance relationships suck more.


**TITLE**: Radar Love

**AUTHOR**: 9091

**PAIRING**: Dean/Cas

**GENRE**: Humor/Smut

**RATING**: Mature/Explicit

**SPOILERS**: General through mid-season 6

**THANKS** to: Paintchipped, beta reader extraordinaire, trained handler of plot bunnies and indulgent supporter of half-crazed fanfic writers who don't sleep.

**SUMMARY**: Long distance relationships suck. Secret long distance relationships suck more.

-1-

**THE DOUBLE BARREL SALOON**

**CHEYENNE, WYOMING**

"We're in a relationship now," Cas said simply, with a little smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He seemed to be trying this revelation on for size, and liking it.

Dean furtively glanced around. "Don't just… say it out loud, Cas. Come on!"

"You haven't come to terms with your sexua —"

"Don't say stuff like that out loud either. Or… ever."

"Why not?"

"This is a hunter bar, Cas. And I'd like to leave without someone trying to kick my ass. Just this one time."

Cas glanced down at his beer, drawing little lines in the condensation on the mug like a child. "So kissing you then is —"

"Jesus," Dean sighed. "Let's just go."

Within the next second, they were outside next to the Impala.

Pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, Dean said, "Damn it, Cas! I meant — 'let's walk outside.'"

"If we're going to be together, Dean, you should probably work on communicating your desires more effectively," Cas advised helpfully, and with a hard flutter, he was gone.

Dean made fists at where Cas had been standing. "Or you could work on not just leaving in the middle of our —"

With a second flutter, Cas was standing on his opposite side. Dean spun around only to be kissed shyly on the edge if his mouth, and Cas was gone again.

"Cas! Goddamnit."

-2-

**SINGER SALVAGE**

**SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA**

"I've gathered more information about your culture through various media outlets."

Dean looked at him over the top of the newspaper, always taken aback by Cas' unflinching stare. He snarled around the pen stuck in his mouth. "This should be good."

"The common theme seems to be that human males don't enjoy discussing their feelings."

He shook the paper out crisply and spoke from behind it. "They don't."

"You seem to be a rather extreme example of this phenomenon."

"Yes, I really am quite something."

"You specifically possess certain heteronormative traits that don't lend themselves to —"

Dean lowered the paper again and struggled to shape his mouth around the word. "Heteronormative? Really? Man, what are you even watching?"

"_Everything._"

"Well, that's where you're going wrong. Most of that stuff is shit. Why can't people just have their feelings and not talk about them? I mean, if I know how I'm feeling and I'm okay with it, is that not enough or something?"

"Dr. Phil says that most men feel that way."

"Dr. Phil? Dude's not even a real doctor!"

"You watch him on television. I've seen you."

"I watch loads of stupid crap on television, Cas. And look at me."

Cas looked over at Sam, who was sitting at Bobby's desk in the next room, and dropped his voice accordingly. "I enjoy looking at you."

When Dean lowered the paper to glare, Cas was gone. Dean slumped into the chair, sullen. "What does that word even fucking mean?"

From Bobby's desk across the way, Sam supplied helpfully, "It's when people fall into very male or very female gender roles —"

"Who's asking you?" Dean's yelled over his shoulder.

"I took a class on it," Sam said, hurt.

"I took a class on it," mocked Dean, standing up to drop the newspaper on the table. "I'm going to go outside and set random things on fire. How's that for heteron… hetero… fuck it!" He stalked outside.

-3-

**BIDE-AWHILE MOTOR LODGE**

**CLOVER, INDIANA**

"Dean, I'm behind you!"

Dean, startled, stood up suddenly from where he was rooting around in the back of the Impala and banged his head on the trunk. "Damn it! Cas!"

Cas shrugged with his hands out ("What do you want from me?"), one of many gestures he'd taken from Dean. "You seem to dislike when I sneak up on you, so I've been trying to modify my entrances."

Rubbing the back of his head, Dean gave a half-smile. "Truth be told, Cas… I like your entrances."

Cas squinted, processing. "Is that a double-entendre?"

He chuckled, kind of delighted. "Yeah, it's me, so probably."

"It's been several days since we were last together," Cas said sadly.

Dean bent down to continue digging in the Impala's trunk, suddenly struck shy. "Yeah, man, sorry, we've been —"

A second flashed forward, and Dean and Cas were inside a blinding white room full of rows and rows of storage lockers. Dean had his hands out at his sides to catch himself. "What is this?"

"It's an opportunity with a limited time frame," Cas said bluntly, and his usually bright blue eyes were dark and half-lidded in a way that Dean understood very well.

Dean pushed the angel against the wall, feeling the generous give of Cas' mouth beneath his own. He held Cas firmly by the back of the head, fingers wound in his thick hair, capturing his mouth and claiming it. He enjoyed the helpless squeak that Cas made when he slipped his tongue in. His other hand drifted down to Cas' belly. Cas was painfully hard, and given the obvious lack of underwear between him and his pants, ready. Dean's hands were already under his own shirt now, his fingers pulling blindly at his belt.

"There's no time for that," Cas panted, trying to speak around Dean's insistent mouth. "I thought there might be, but… there was barely time for this — I'm sorry, Dean."

Dean groaned, resting his forehead against Cas' cheek in frustration.

"But it was still nice, I think," Cas said hopefully, adding: "'You have to take time to make time.'"

"Yeah?" Dean said thickly, voice gone lower than usual with arousal. "Where'd you get that one?"

"It was inside a Chinese cookie."

And with that, Dean was back at the Impala and Cas was gone.

"Well." Dean stood uneasily, belt buckle hanging loose, fly undone, cock so hard that his already-tight jeans were cutting into him. "That one you can keep, Cas. That's a good one."

-4-

**FDR MUNICIPAL LIBRARY**

**HYDE PARK, NEW YORK**

That Tuesday, Cas transferred Dean from a public computer at the library to a maintenance closet on the floor above it.

"I'm tired of being riled up by you and then left for hand," Dean growled, yanking at the chain-pull for a single light bulb overhead. "If this is some new turn-on of yours, I don't like it."

"It's self-serving," Cas said, almost apologetically, eyes adjusting to the light. "It turns out that in this vessel, I'm more proficient in battle if I'm sexually aroused."

"Who isn't?"

"But it occurred to me today that you require no such assistance, as you get sexually aroused _during_ battle."

Dean squinted one eye and frowned, considering, before shrugging acceptance.

Cas unfastened Dean's belt and unzipped his fly. Dean's cock went immediately stiff at his touch and Cas heard his throat catch.

Before he lowered his mouth onto Dean, Cas added, "And I thought you might appreciate the irony of our arrangements today."

"You mean your sucking me off." Dean pursed his lips. "In a closet."

"Yes."

"Yeah," Dean said, straining not to come on Cas' hand then and there. "Yeah, I caught that."

"We're also right next to the Religion shelves," Cas pointed out, dragging his tongue up the shaft to the tip.

-5-

**STAKE OUT**

**ELK GROVE, ILLINOIS**

Cas' voice materialized out of the radio. "Dean?"

Dean choked on his bacon dog. "Damn it!"

"I'm sorry, but I'm at a loss as to how to approach you in a way that won't startle you," Cas explained.

Dean addressed the inside of the Impala in frustration. "I bought you a phone! If you're earthbound, you can dial my number. You just hold down the 2. We talked about this."

"I tried that, but the phone won't turn on." Even as an invisible presence, he sounded sheepish. "I may have lost the piece that connects it to a power source."

Dean rubbed his forehead. "Okay, we'll work on it. Where are you?"

"I'm not where I can appear to you in person, unfortunately."

"That sucks." Dean took another bite of bacon dog. "I'm not where I can do anything, either. I'm watching this dude's house to make sure he's not attacked by a wraith."

"Shouldn't you be waiting inside?"

Dean snorted dismissively. "He thinks we're nuts. You know when he won't think we're nuts? When we save his dumb ass from a wraith."

"Do you have time to talk?"

Raising his eyebrow, he said, "I guess so."

"I wanted to talk to you about sucking your cock."

Luckily he hadn't taken a bite, or he would've died choking on it. "For fuck's sake, Cas." He stammered into the darkness. "This again?"

"I've been practicing."

Dean stuck his lower lip out, mulling this over. "How? Just you and the other angels and the heavenly choirs and shit? 'Cas, what's deep-throating again?'"

Cas didn't take the bait. "I think I can do it well now."

"The last time you tried to talk dirty, you described me coming as a 'paroxysm.'"

"I know."

"You referred to my fucking your ass as 'sexual congress.'"

"Yes, I recall."

"It was like spraying me with bone-killer."

Cas sighed. "Yes, it didn't go well, but I've been working on it. And it's another way to be with you."

Dean leaned back in the seat, crossing his arms. He could sense Cas' annoyance, just by the silence that went on for too long, and frankly enjoyed being able to shake him up a bit. "You're pouting, aren't you? I can't see you, but I can feel you pouting. Okay. Lay it on me."

"Close your eyes."

"Okay," Dean said, not closing them.

More silence. "Your eyes aren't closed, Dean."

Dean peered all around. "Okay, now you're being creepy on purpose. Listen, I'm on a stakeout, I'm not closing my eyes. So impress me."

"I've taken extra measures to ensure that you have privacy."

"So if one of Illinois' finest catches me playin' with myself, you're gonna zap me out of here, right?"

"It wouldn't be a problem." Cas sounded sad for a moment. "I just couldn't transfer you to where I am."

Bolstered by this, Dean started to unzip.

"Not yet," Cas said firmly.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Okay, then what?"

"You can touch yourself, but you can't unzip. Now, I want you to imagine being tied to a chair —"

"Bone-killer," Dean intoned.

"Dean —"

"Having been tied to a chair, and beds and God knows what else, I'm going to tell you that the whole thing's about as arousing as watching squirrels fuck. Which I got to do earlier today, by the way, because I've been here for eight hours."

"You've never tried it my way," Cas said patiently. "I promise it's going to be more interesting than squirrel copulation."

"See?" Dean gestured at his lap. "Squirrel copulation. You've killed it again. It's dead now, Cas. It's an ex-penis."

Cas had to hurry before Dean could launch into the rest of his Monty Python-inspired "dead penis" sketch.

"You're on a table. You're bent over. You don't know where you are, but the air is chilled. Your wrists and ankles are tied — not enough to hurt you unless you strain against them. Just enough to keep you from moving. You've got a blindfold on you. You can't see anything."

Dean's breathing hadn't changed, but he was listening.

Cas was taking a risk here. Most of the time, Dean enjoyed being the one doing the taking. He forged ahead. "I'm in the room with you. I'm just staring at you, Dean. You're so… _available_ to me, and it's too much, because I can't think of what I want to do first. Maybe I just want to pull up a chair and kiss you for awhile. Or maybe I want to rub my hands all over you, just to feel you. I could slip my face between your legs and just slide your cock into my mouth, just softly. Slowly. It's not like we have anywhere to be."

There it was. Dean's breathing was quicker now. With one hand, he'd started rub himself through his jeans. There wasn't a lot of room for expansion there. Cas wished he was there to run his hand over that bulge, in person.

"You'd like that, I think. You'd want me to hurry up, but I wouldn't. I'd suck hard on you and then I'd just pull back, Dean, and I'd watch you struggle when the cold air hits you. And I'd stay so still, you'd think maybe I left, until you felt my fingers explore or felt my breath against your belly."

"Let. Me. Unzip," Dean insisted through clenched teeth. He had both hands on himself now, one hand now on his balls, rubbing them through the denim.

"Shhh."

Dean made a low growl of frustration that vibrated the Impala, his knees braced against the steering wheel.

"I think if I put you in this situation, you'd let me do what I wanted. You wouldn't put up a fight. You always put up a fight, even when it's something you want. But if just kiss your skin, if I just lick your shaft soft and slow, if I bury my fingers in you just a little at a time… I think you'd let me do anything."

It felt like Cas' voice was right inside his head, right inside of where he wanted him to be, a bomb about to go off.

"I want to see you like that. All tied up, not getting what you want. I think you'd beg me. And then all I'd have to do is slide my thumb just right. All I'd have to do is put my lips over the head of your cock, just a little —"

Dean sucked his breath in, twice, head thrown hard against the seat.

Cas said, low and guttural, "And I think, for the smallest favor, for just a little bit of skin and heat right where you needed it… Dean, you would _beg_ me."

Both hands on himself through his jeans, practically sprawled across the front seat, one leg almost up on it, Dean came. Hard.

Cas let him sit there and catch his breath for a minute.

Dean mumbled incredulously, blinking fast. He felt through his jeans where he was about to be uncomfortably sticky. "I didn't even get unzipped."

"You're right," Cas said. And if a voice could smirk, he added, "My technique probably needs work. I'll practice some more."

-6-

**SUPER 8 MOTEL**

**DETROIT, MICHIGAN**

Cas was propped up on one elbow, looking at Dean as he drifted off. "You should stop yelling 'God' during our time together. It would be like me yelling 'John Winchester' while we have sex."

Dean's eyes popped open. "Oh, that's just great. I'll sleep _now_."

-7-

**SINGER SALVAGE**

**SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA**

Dean was walking out of Bobby's guest bathroom shaking water off his toothbrush when Cas struck again. Bobby's mothball scented hallway gave way to the gleaming marble and granite of a familiar hotel bathroom. Dean was sitting chest-deep in the hot, jet-assisted water.

Dean remembered being unceremoniously dumped here before. Wet jeans were a bitch. "Well, you've been practicing. No clothes and no bubbles. Nice job, Cas."

"I know," came Cas' disembodied voice. "I do take note of what you like, Dean. For instance, this is the very private room you liked because you were free to make noise."

He imagined he felt a little breeze against one arm, but Cas' voice was now floating toward him from the other side. "I like when you make noise, Dean."

Dean leered smugly, but still warily looked around, as if Cas might appear behind him at any moment. "Oh, I'm gonna make some. Get your ass in here."

The angel's voice sounded disconcertingly mischievous. "I think I'll stay like this for now."

"That doesn't sound like fun for me."

"Do you know what I can do, Dean?" The angel's voice was soft and smooth, and Dean couldn't pin it down to any one direction. "I can project my thoughts as a kind of amorphous appendage. And right now I'm thinking about your ass."

"Oh, when aren't you thinking about —" Dean suddenly sat upright, sloshing water all around, at the sensation of being filled slowly and completely. Suddenly, he remembered breathing. "Cas, what was —?"

"It's like a cock," Cas whispered, his husky voice now low in Dean's right ear. "Except that I can make it whatever size I want."

"Angel sutra," Dean managed to rasp, settling against the pressure with a long, low moan. "Nice."

"Actually, I can make it fill any space I want, against any gland I want." Cas' whisper moved to Dean's left ear. "So I guess it's more like a tongue."

Dean had a sort of spinal reflex at these words, his eyes closing.

"Keep your hands off of yourself, Dean, and I'll make it more fun for you."

He knew Cas was watching him closely, with whatever form he'd decided to take, because the soft sucking pressure seemed to adjust itself to Dean's inability to breathe. The size was always just shy of filling him too much, or too widely. Dean grunted and wrapped the fingers of one hand tightly around his cock, which had become embarrassingly engorged, unable to stand it any longer.

Cas forced Dean's hands to either side of the bathtub. "No. I said hands off, Dean. I often do whatever you tell me, but now I would like you to do as I say."

Dean nodded to himself, his big shoulders shaking. The sensation now zeroed in very specifically, with a harder licking motion, on an area inside Dean that made his eyes roll back, the cords of his neck straining. He found himself rising up and down as if he were really being thoroughly fucked, but missed having nothing to grind against.

As if Cas had intercepted this thought, Dean was treated to the sensation of what felt like fingers gently squeezing and pressing against his balls.

Just at the point where Dean was about to cry out, bare his teeth and lose it, Cas slowed the motions and decreased the pressure, just enough to make Dean's breath catch, his eyes wide, his entire body flushed with fever. The thrusting was just slow enough to keep him at an arm's reach from satisfaction. He was saying the angel's name in a low growled mantra under his breath, something he was never aware that he did. His lips were white from biting them, and then suddenly flushed red again, his thighs rising out of the water, his legs lewdly and eagerly spread. Cas could hear his heartbeat drumming away, could hear the blood in his cock.

And this was what Cas wanted, what he most appreciated: Dean Winchester, stripped away. When Dean was too overwhelmed with arousal to keep himself in check, the hard angles of his face softened, both years and weariness dropped away and his bottle-green eyes would go suddenly clear and bright.

In these moments, with his back arching and his gaze upwards, Cas would swear that he had seen Dean's face on iconic statues centuries before. In famous Renaissance paintings that seemed to be lit from within. In unthinkably old books, the kind that the Vatican kept in climate-controlled vaults.

He slowed what Dean had called angel sutra for now, bringing it patiently, in waves, to a full stop. Dean gasped at the absence of being filled as Cas appeared before him. To Dean, it looks as if the angel had risen up from the water, hair soaked to his skull, wings heavy and dripping. Cas seldom showed them when they were like this, but Dean never failed to be struck absolutely dumb by them.

With Dean's thoughts racing, but his mouth seemingly unable to move, Cas indulged himself in listening to what was going on in there.

"Get out of my head, Cas," Dean panted, recognizing this look, voice ragged. _Don't you know enough about me? Why do you do all this for me, anyway?_

Cas ignored the first question and skipped to the second: "Who wouldn't sin for you, Dean, if they were given the chance?"

Finding his hands free now, Dean slid the angel up onto his hips, pulling them both down into the water.

-8-

**SINGER SALVAGE**

**SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA**

Dean texted him: _At Bobby's. It's just me._

Cas called him back; he had no idea how texting worked, he barely knew how to work the new phone Dean had bought him for him. He knew how to call out and how to answer when it played "Dazed and Confused."

Dean didn't let him get a word in once he'd picked up. "Is this a good time?"

"I was thinking of calling you," Cas said. "It's… how do you put it? A waiting game."

"Well, come wait with me." Dean said playfully. "Bobby's outta town all morning, Sam's sprung wood over some new library they've got down here. He probably won't come up for air for awhile."

He appeared in front of Dean, phone in hand. Dean – or actually someone named Alan Mirkus from Omaha – had gotten Cas a satellite phone. When Cas was called up, the phone docked here at Bobby's. Dean knew Cas was topside when the phone was missing, and found himself checking for it to be gone almost every day.

Dean was leaning against the door of what had become his permanent bedroom at Bobby's, in black boxers, an Ace bandage wrapped around one thigh and nothing else.

Cas took more than a few moments to appreciate him in the flesh. It had been too long, and he was happy to observe that Dean was less and less inebriated when they got together. There was no softness around his edges right now, no slurring to his voice, nothing to indicate that Dean had to drink down his inhibitions anymore like when they had first gotten together.

"Hey!" Dean stepped forward quickly to move the trench coat aside. "You're all bloody. What the hell happened?"

"Just a fight. I was superficially injured. Nothing serious."

He knew very well that Cas could take a moment to heal his own vessel, but that wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying as being doctored up.

Dean started helping him pull his clothes away one by one. It was nice to have the place to themselves, not closing the doors, trying to stay quiet (which Dean made impossible) or making do with uncomfortable surfaces. Cas would've liked to have smuggled him away to the resort with the huge bathtub again and put Dean in his thrall, but doing that took a lot more power than Cas had to spare.

When Dean turned around from kicking all of Cas' clothes into the corner, the angel had his wings spread wide, which almost competed with his complete and utter nakedness. Almost.

"Aw, look at you," Dean said, his face splitting into a smile that was more like a supernova than anything else. "Showin' off for me?"

"I… I can't manage to –" Cas looked down at the floor, eyes shifty. "They want to come out whenever I'm around you. It becomes painful to keep them in."

"Don't rein in your angel boner on my account." Dean was stepping out of his boxers. "Just watch the eyes this time, okay? The eye patch was kinda hard to explain."

"I said I was sorry."

Dean laughed. "Cas, I'm just messin' with you." His face fell into more somber lines, and he got shy as he always did when he was about to admit something. "I just… it's been a month. It's been a whole month. It sucked, man. I missed you like crazy."

Cas knew that Dean's "I missed you" was as good as anyone else's "I love you" and maybe even better, considering the source. It was easy to figure out when Dean Winchester loved you, and very easy to figure out when he stopped. Cas remembered the exact moment when he knew: Dean had stood in the beautiful room and spat out the words, "We are done." Cas felt like he'd just had his glory torn out. And he knew what that felt like.

They each stepped forward at the same time, Dean pulling him close, being mindful of the wings, being easy on him.

It was Cas' turn to fight for Dean's mouth, to be abrupt. It had been too long. It had been too miserable. Dean eagerly returned it, happy for the lack of foreplay. He certainly didn't need it after so long. Each seemed to have decided they were going to fuck the other, to Dean's delight. His best times with Cas were in the rough and tumble first minutes where they were fighting out who would ride and who would be ridden. It's not like anyone really _lost_.

"Give it up," Dean said gleefully. "I'm gonna fuck you into the mattress until you can't walk."

"This is how you got poked in the eye last time," Cas grumbled.

"It is, isn't it?" Dean shrank back a little. Even just the rough contact of skin-on-skin-on-wings was making him hard. "Those sonsabitches are pokier than they look."

Finally, out of breath, Cas fell onto the mattress onto his back, wings and all. Dean, triumphant, had straddled him across the hips until Cas' cock pressed hard into his stomach.

And then they both heard it, and froze. Footsteps in the living room. Sam. Dean untangled himself quickly, but he knew there wasn't time enough to hide or do anything. Even if Dean could've moved from the spot, it wouldn't have been fast enough.

"Dean?" Sam called out, his long shadow stretched along the hall outside of the bedroom. "Hey, Dean, are you still asl —?"

Sam froze too. The two books he was carrying almost fell out of his hands. His expression was likely just as horrified as theirs. He turned so fast that his hair swirled around his face. "Uhh… sorry. Sorry, I… I didn't uh – I'm going to –" He pointed vaguely at the living room, his face flushing as he walked away.

Stunned, Dean closed the bedroom door, as if he could magically undo what had just happened, and stood looking helplessly at Cas with his back against it. What felt weird was the shame, because Sam had caught Dean in the act plenty of times, starting from as early as when he was eleven. Given the percentage of his life Dean had spent naked and fucking, it was what Sam had called a statistical inevitability. Several incidents later, Sam would just call out "Dean! Shit!", do his panicked heel-turn and tell Dean to put his pants on.

But there wasn't going to be any easy way to walk this one back, not with Cas sprawled out on the bed looking somehow filthier and more naked than anyone had ever looked before.

Cas pulled himself up to a sitting position. "Dean… I'm sorry."

Dean was scrubbing his hands through his hair, pacing back and forth, picking up clothes as he went and pulling them on. He gave the slightest of unconvincing smiles. "It was bound to happen sometime, Cas. Look at the way we've been carrying on. The one time I don't insist you beam us up outta here and –"

He stopped then, face falling into its familiar hard lines. "C'mon, get dressed. Give me some time with him to… I don't know, actually. Just… I'll come get you."

Sam was in the living room, looking at a book without looking at it. Under any other circumstances, Dean would've found it hilarious that Sam's face hadn't shifted from the shell-shocked look he wore in the hallway, because it hadn't. Not a muscle had budged. Sam looked up at him, seemingly grateful to see him clothed, and then back down again.

Dean decided to just go balls-out into it. "So, you probably want an explanation for that."

Giving up on the pretense of reading, Sam pushed the book away. "Not unless you… just want to."

Frankly, Dean had no idea where to begin.

Sam lost patience and asked, "How long have you…?"

"A few months now," Dean answered, an apology in his upward glance.

"What should I say?" Sam asked desperately.

"I have no idea." Dean leaned forward, hands on his knees. He felt like he'd jeopardized what he and Sam had just gotten back after an awful year.

"Are you happy?" Sam asked, and then an accusing tone creeped in. "Or are you just fooling around with him? Because he's your friend, Dean, and if you're –"

"You think I'm taking advantage of him or something?"

Sam's gaze had wandered over Dean's shoulder. Dean turned to find Cas standing there, fully dressed again minus the trench coat and tie.

"Hey, Cas," Sam said softly.

"Hello, Sam."

Cas sat opposite Dean in Bobby's big chair, and Dean was stunned by the look on his face: Cas looked almost as aggrieved as Dean had ever seen him. Not quite "God isn't coming"-sad, but close.

_He thinks it's over now._

Dean sat back and stared at him, hurt and angry at the same time. All he said was, "Cas… just relax. Get that look off your face."

Sam looked from one of them to the other, and then back again. "_Oh_."

Dean turned to him. "Oh?"

His brother made a surprised sort of laugh then. "You're _together_."

"Yeah, idiot, we're –" Dean stared back at him, ignoring how Cas had slumped forward a little in relief. "What are you saying?"

"I've never seen it!" Sam laughed for real now. "Dean, I've known you my entire life, and I've never seen you with anyone whose name you remembered a week later. I know you have been," he added quickly. "That girl in Missouri, Lisa… but I've never really seen it myself and…" He smiled, eyebrows clear up to his hairline. "Congratulations, I guess?"

Cas had relocated himself from the chair to the couch where Dean was sitting, obviously not sure if he should move closer or not. Dean just looked at him and nodded.

"Leave it to you to make an awkward moment more socially awkward," Dean grumbled.

Sam gestured back into the hall toward the bedroom. "More awkward than _that_? There's not that much awkward in the world, Dean!"

The back door into the kitchen clattered opened behind them. Bobby was back from errands. He threw plastic sacks of frozen food down on the floor in favor of the heavy liquor store bag in his arms. The tension in the room must've been undeniable, because Bobby looked from Sam's expression (somewhere between amused and startled) to Dean and Cas sitting on the couch. Dean was suddenly aware of his bare feet, how close he and Cas were suddenly sitting and – looking past Cas to Bobby – the epic case of sex hair the two of them had. Dean smoothed his down self-consciously.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Are you two idjits finally done sneaking around?"

Sam and Dean turned as one unit and said, together, "You knew? How –"

Bobby looked at Cas. Cas immediately looked at his feet.

"Cas!" Dean glared at him in disbelief. "What the hell?"

Panicked, Cas said, "I read in a book that it was customary in your culture to ask the parent of… the one you wish to pursue… if you can pursue them. Your parents are dead, so –"

"Where in the fuck did you read that? In 1953?"

Cas' eyes had gone huge, too huge for his face. "I didn't check the date on the reference materials. They may have been outdated."

Dean threw his hands out, palm-up. "Stop reading!"

"I needed to know what to do, Dean!" Cas answered defensively. "I tried to get 'How to Deal with a Long Distance Relationship When One of You is an Angel of the Lord and the other one is Dean Winchester', but it was checked out."

Sam choked on his coffee.

"I regret ever teaching you sarcasm," Dean growled.

Bobby turned away from them wearily, unpacking liquor bottles, as if he was talking about the weather. "I figured that if you shot him for putting moves on you, he could just fix himself and try again. So I guess you didn't."

"I can't believe you knew," Dean said, stunned.

"Why did you think I was gone so often, Dean?" Bobby stomped over to the fridge. "I've run more errands in the past six months than I've run my entire life."

Dean just wordlessly stammered from the couch. He could feel the glow of victory from Sam's direction, something to lord over his big brother forever. "But why?"

"Because you've been more tolerable in the last six months than you've been in recent memory." Bobby poked his head out of the kitchen to peer at Cas. "Thanks, Cas."

"I didn't realize it until now, but he's right," Sam agreed happily. "Hey thanks, Cas."

Cas smiled proudly at this turn of events.

Dean got up and angrily stalked outside. The salvage yard was running out of stuff for him to set on fire.


End file.
